This was by no means the beginning of my troubles; within the recent past I had experienced unemployment, staples hammered into my flesh, and vomiting on myself in a ditch at night during a torrential rainstorm.

We “went together” and “broke up” a few times over the course of our high school years, alternately cherishing and punishing each other like passionate, petulant, self-involved teenagers. Which, of course, is exactly what we were.

“In their music, popular groups are putting across fornication and drugs as a way of life… What possible meeting of the minds can there be between true Christians and the attitudes manifested in such lyrics and philosophy?” – Watchtower magazine, 1/15/83

I imagined walking into Target, and seeing those cute young cashiers, and having to admit that I had bailed on the long-awaited reunion of Rage Against the Machine because I had a cold, and that humiliation was intolerable to me.